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Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Ranchan Weidman and the Robotech Roleplay

By Bixyl Shuftan

High above the HV Community sim is a space carrier which Ranchan Weidman
made her home in Second Life, and the hangout of many of her friends.
The carrier, and a few other places high above the sim, are the settings
for a Robotech Roleplay. The roleplay is not a new one, but has been
going on for close to a decade, since 2008. The game has players from
both the early days, and some more recent ones. It is not a "combat
rolepay" like New Bastogne, but instead the various settings help put
the players in the mood, as well as the uniforms the players often wear.
The game is played out much like a real life roleplaying game, with
Ranchan acting as the gamemaster and the players various characters
helping to defend Earth, Ranchan occasionally calling on the players to
make dice rolls when making an action or responding to one.

"For
the last nine years, players have participated in my blended version of
Robotech / Albedo," Ranchan told me, "It's a Sci-fi space drama which
incorporates a large part of the history of the original Robotech
Universe mixed with The Albedo Universe. The players have enjoyed a mix
of settings within the theme of Science Fiction /Fantasy from being in
space, to the cold of Alaska and down in the nice islands of Hawaii."

Although
the game is often called "Robotech" out of convenience, the title
Ranchan gave it is "Robotech: The Albedo Alliance." For those who don't
know, "Robotech" is the American version of Japanese anime TV shows and
movies in which human pilots fly space fighters that can fold into
robots in combat against giant aliens called Zentraedi, whom are a
warrior culture that finds a number of aspects of human society, such as
music and love, hard to understand and sometimes frightening. "Albedo"
is a less well-known science fiction tale, Ranchan stating, "Albedo is
the shortened version of Albedo : Anthropomorphics. Artist Steven A
Gallacci Art Featured here http://www.furaffinity.net/user/stevegallacci , and here http://www.stevegallacci.com
, in where he created a universe of anthropomorphic animals in a
slightly futuristic setting but dealing with an in depth look of
political , social and military values ideals and repercussions. I would
highly recommend reading the story. It's well written and thought
through."

The plot of the roleplay's story universe diverged
from that of cannon Robotech from the very start, "There are lots of
things I remember, and I fondly remember how things got started for this
roleplay. One of the things I stress to any new player, and as of late,
older ones, I will not be following the cannon story line of Robotech.
The story itself opened up with a bit of background history for the
universe I was going to create, and the players were going to live in
and help shape. ... Robotech fans ... would recall the day the SDF 1
crashed onto Earth. And that's about as much original cannon material I
relied on to start with. Everything after that point is unique to the
universe. When the SDF-1 crashed, it opened a tear in the space - time
continuum . This space - time tear, pulled a cruise ship from the Albedo
Universe, over, thus forever introducing anthropomorphics to humans

"From
there, after 10 years of strife and working together. we introduce the
players characters to the world. This being abbreviated from what the
players actually read in the note card. But when it first started, our
players were just arriving at boot camp, at an island nearby Macross
Island. The SDF was three months out of being completed, when our first
set of players started their training. The first set of trainees were,
Miya Cross, Nydia Tungsten, L'sai Aeon, Icebolt Aeon, Umbra Gardenvale,
Tanya Ayoob, Kit Repine, and Squick. "

Besides the plotlines of the roleplay,
what's been going on with the place it's been held is a story in itself,
Ranchan explaining, "Things were slow at first for the roleplay as I
was still holding my own, running Club Afterburner, putting together the
military training base the trainees were studying at and building a 100
m diameter labyrinth under the RDF CVN Aegwei I for a treasure hunt. It
was only after Linden Lab changed the rules on void sims, changing them
to Homesteads, and bumping up the cost that we had to abandon Pacific
Waters and took up residence on Sunweaver Air, which later became HV
Community sim, and not having the duties of the club things started to
pace faster for the role play. The void sim offered the size of a full
sim but a quarter of the prims , script allowance and avatars that could
be on it. After moving over from there. we were squished into roughly
less than a quarter size sim. I had to trim down further when my real
life situation drastically changed and I couldn't support the parcels I
had. so we became pretty small in size. It was around that time that we
moved from the northeast corner of HV community to where we are now,
about center east to just off center of the sim that I dedicated some of
the land to a worthwhile cause.

"I've built at least 20 versions
of the ARMD platform to fit each parcel. We're currently on a decent
sized parcel, about 108m by 64. maybe 80 meters. ... My builders that
have helped me with some of the zones. really deserve a good portion of
the credit too. A special thanks to them 'cause my landscaping skills
suck compared to building things .Kinya Resident and Matoazma 'Mato
Foxy.' "

I asked about the ship's many different versions over
time. Ranchan answered, "Four of the versions were for prim (and) land
size. Everything else was overhaul. Like spring cleaning, only more
frequent."

I asked about how often does the roleplay have
sessions, asking if it had one a week. Ranchan answered, "We've started
to do two. One of our long time members schedule at work changed and the
goal was to include her more so a second day had been brought in. Been
running a second day for over eight months now. The eventual goal is to
have something going each day, with some parts being live interactions,
as if you and I were walking through the hallways, and stopped to have a
chat, then moved past that, one heads to a different location, while
say I headed to the bridge of the ship etc. But that's going to require a
bit more game assistants staff, and a lot more players."

I asked
about the various plots over time. Ranchan answered, "Every player has a
sub plot that they are involved with some how. Sometimes the sub plots
become larger side plots and main plots as because of not strictly
following the main story, but the players following an untold story of
the combined universe has allowed for a lot of flexibility. A lot of
'who cares what Rick Hunter did, or Toki did, but what Nydia Tungsten
did, or Miya Cross has done. Mato's achievements, and what our new
players Christine ( played by Skylark 'Snowy' ) and Puella ( played by
Kiwi ) are doing.' Unfortunately, with time and how it is (with) Second
Life, for some players real life has stolen their time, not letting them
come on and participate. Tanya Ayoob, our ship 'Gunbunny' Special
Forces specialist hasn't been on in at least a few years."

"For
me, I dwell in an abyss of plots and sub plots. I love to end sessions
at times, with cliffhangers. A sample set of plots that I believe the
players have enjoyed are as follows. One adventure led the players to
take part in a ball at a ski lodge in Alaska. They had to detour an
assassin plot against one of the delegates which were attending a
meeting being held there. That one turned into a ski chase down hill.
Another one took place at a roller rink. the players were going in to
rescue the squadron commander, Shelly 'Kit' Sintol. She had been
abducted while on vacation by a former friend of Umbra Gardenvale, who
was leading an anti military group. One of the first plots during the
training phase was surviving the wilderness after being shot down on a
routine helo repelling lesson."

Asking more about the ski chase,
Ranchan described, "After the team uncovered who the assassins were,
some of the group that were involved attempted to get away from the
players. One of them had managed to get onto a pair of skis and were
rushing away down a non trail path. But they were captured still in the
end. After the three sessions of the players arriving at the base in
Alaska, they headed to a hotel, individually, although there were some
that arrived in pairs. got dressed up for the night at the lodge, and
eventually made it to attendance of the party they were able to uncover
the who and neutralize the threats fairly swiftly. Although the one that
got away on skis did make it down hill to a set of private cabins which
was where he was taken down as well. that part only took one session to
wrap up. I had built a small small not to scale model of the lodge up
in the mountain, and a few of the cabins down below. After that, is when
Mato started to take part as well."

The current plot involves
the team having been assigned their own ship, of which Matoazma
captains, but Ranchan couldn't go too much in detail of the subplots,
"Those are still in the progress of rolling out."

Of the
roleplay's future, Ranchan told me, "Well, I would love to add more
players, and bump some current players to staff that still play so that
eventually this can be a more interactive roleplay with bells and
whistles and running 24/7, and I hope that I can continue providing
material for the players so they don't get bored."

"I would love
to thank all of my players, past, present, and hopefully future for
taking part in helping to shape the history of the universe that I
started. Every one's contribution with their character into the story
lines means a great deal to me. I enjoy watching players relax,
characters develop and mature and hope that they have enjoyed it as much
as I have, and continue to do."

The Newser may do articles in the future about the roleplay, such as in depth articles about the players and their characters.